Apple almost gets its whisper number

This is just an update to this morning’s post. As I said this morning:

Based on past performance Business Insider says the Whisper number is about EPS of $12.41 and revenue of $38.51 billion while official estimates are only $10 EPS and revenue of $36.63 billion.

[…]

I believe Apple has become of overriding importance in the narrow US market leadership. If it beats its numbers substantially, it will have a lot of momentum to take it to unheard of levels. On the other hand, a miss will cause a massive selloff. This all means a beat in the range between the Whisper number and the official estimates is the one that will produce the least volatile outcome.

The outcome at 4PM was a profit of $12.30 a share ($11.62 billion), up from $6.40 a share ($5.98 billion) last year. That is just about bang on the whisper number. Revenue increased to $39.19 billion, which was above the Whisper number. I think this tells you that revenue growth is still chugging along at Apple – a very solid quarter in my view. That should be positive for shares, which are already up nearly 7% in after-hours trading.

UPDATE: Also Henry Blodget reminds us that Apple’s iPhone will be a $100 billion business this year. Since it launched 5 years ago, that’s pretty amazing.